


Wind Keeps Blowing

by Tassos



Series: Mama Bears [2]
Category: Farscape, Firefly
Genre: Community: helpthesouth, Crossover, Gen, Sequel, Spoilers PKW, Timestamp, the Noodle Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-20
Updated: 2011-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-27 14:08:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/296677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tassos/pseuds/Tassos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A glimpse of Aeryn's 'verse post Mama Bears.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wind Keeps Blowing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wendelah1](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wendelah1/gifts).



> Thanks go to Wendelah1 for bidding and requesting this timestamp. Thank you so much for both the donation and for egging me to revisit this corner of the universe. Also thanks to katewrites for beta reading.  
> 
> 
> * * *

"What am I going to do with you?" Aeryn looked him up and down and tried not to smile at the pure mess that stood before her.

All two and a half feet of tiny, muddy boy grinned up at her. Bare feet indistinguishable from the street, shorts and shirt stiff with caked grime, and two wide eyes bright against dulled skin. "Hose, mom. Dad says you just need to hose me off."

"He does, does he?" Aeryn wondered what John would really say if he were the one who had to keep dirt out of their tiny apartment.

"Yes." D'argo nodded his head for emphasis, then raised his arms out wide. "Hose me!"

That was his favorite part, and no doubt why he had come to show off everything he'd been into since breakfast. Aeryn couldn't keep the smile back any longer. She didn't like the word cute, but ever since having offspring she had to admit that D'argo embodied more than his fair share.

"All right, mister," she said. "To the well." D'argo saluted sloppily and took off running, sand kicking behind him as he darted through the alley they lived on to the courtyard a block away.

They wouldn't use clean well water -- that would have been a waste on this dusty planet -- but the trough that caught the overflow was clean enough. The courtyard was open and airy, and the bright sun found the ground through the tall buildings that stood shoulder to shoulder several stories high. Made of wood and prefab, they were cobbled together with good wishes and love as much as anything.

D'argo was already slapping at the water with Tyra and Chen, a girl and boy his age that lived nearby. Both were equally muddy, and now they'd started a new game that involved lots of splashing and running in circles around another group of children playing there. Working parents kept half an eye out, scattered about doing chores, making wares, or just sitting on the stoop for a moment of peace. Regina, surrounded by a mountain of cloth on the steps of her building, waved to Aeryn. Aeryn smiled and waved back.

Their neighborhood on Persephone was poor but not the slum they had lived in on Boros. They rubbed elbows, one of John's apt phrases, with the working class that served the docks and the surrounding businesses, jostled together in the busy streets that were crowded with peddlers and travelers and the same kind of petty criminals found everywhere.

John had found work at a junkyard an hour walk distant that kept him from sunup to sundown. He was dismantling for scrap rather than repairing whatever came through the gates. Aeryn knew he chafed under the boredom, but he seemed content enough for the moment, and he hadn't said a word against her when Aeryn told him she didn't want to leave D'argo alone while he recovered from his sickness. That was six months ago now, and Aeryn still hadn't found a steady job -- and she couldn't say she missed it.

D'argo had completely forgotten about getting hosed off while he ran and giggled with his friends. Typical. Aeryn shook her head, her loose hair falling over her shoulders, and she ambled over to chat with Regina.

"Hands full with that one," said Regina in greeting. Her dark curly hair was pulled back and her hands never stopped moving. She sewed on her front steps every day, and was one of the first people to invite Aeryn to come and do nothing more than keep her company.

Aeryn found a relatively empty and pin-free space to sit down beside her. "I know where he finds the dirt but not how he gets it everywhere."

"It's a magic only children know," laughed Regina. Her own girls were older and already working in one of the shops on Aster Lane.

Aeryn didn't know about magic, but she couldn't deny that D'argo needed hosing off more often than not. A task Aeryn probably wouldn't get to right away. Their courtyard had visitors.

Lacking steady work didn't mean Aeryn had escaped it entirely. From the direction of the main road, two men, both solidly built but wearing an approximation of respectable clothing sauntered their way. The taller one made eye contact with Aeryn who was already on her feet to intercept them. Her fingers didn't need to brush the pistol on her thigh, but its weight was comforting.

"Brendle," she said when they were close enough not to shout. The two men stopped and let Aeryn close the distance until she was several metras away.

"Sun." Brendle nodded. "Badger's got a job for you. Wants you to come in an hour if you want it." Unlike his companion who fidgeted and looked at her sideways, Brendle was calm. Aeryn had worked with him once, on her first official job for Badger and found him to be one of the more clever grunts. He followed instructions and had a good head when the purple bellies showed up.

"Long job?" Aeryn asked.

Brendle shrugged. "One of our transporters giving us some trouble. Hard-headed sort."

Just the kind of people Aeryn apparently had a talent for making see reason. Or Badger's reason. Their local crime lord ran a smart organization that mostly left residents alone, keeping them in check by controlling the markets, black and legitimate, rather than by brute force and scare tactics. It wasn't necessarily a better system when debts came due, and local politics were a nightmare, but Badger had finesse and a diligent desire to keep the Alliance out of his territory so he kept the overt crime rate low.

After a mess John got them in with their landlord, Aeryn became known as someone who was good at negotiations that ended with fewer dead people. Badger got wind of it, and every once in a while he paid her to get something he needed from someone he couldn't steal from, intimidate, or kill outright.

When John heard of Aeryn's first job offer, he'd hadn't believed her. Then he nearly made himself sick from laughing. Aeryn had too.

"An hour then," said Aeryn, confirming the meet. Brendle touched a pair of fingers to his forehead and dragged his friend off. Aeryn went to ask Regina to watch D'argo until John came home.

* * *

It was late afternoon when Aeryn arrived at the docks. The shipfront was crowded but most made way for her dressed as she was in black -- boots, pants, vest -- her hair slicked back and tied in a professional ponytail. She looked like a peacekeeper, and if no one in this realized reality had knowledge of what that meant, they understood well enough her role.

Aeryn counted landing pad numbers until she was standing in front of a familiar ancient wreck of a firefly.

"Well, this isn't very surprising," she said to herself as she looked up a the open cargo bay doors. It was still bright enough outside that the interior was too dark to see if anyone was home, but Aeryn wasn't there to knock.

She strode easily past the docking post -- noting their scheduled departure was early tomorrow morning -- and onto the cargo ramp. "Hello?"

"Hi!" a bright and bubbly voice answered, and as Aeryn's eyes adjusted, the slim girl tech materialized, Kylee or Kaylee, Aeryn wasn't sure of her name. "Welcome to _Serenity_!" she greeted Aeryn brightly. "She's the nicest ship in the 'verse, but we ain't taking passengers right now."

"Not here for shipping." The strange girl, River -- Aeryn, remembered her well -- sat cross-legged on the crates to the side that were stacked all the way up to the walkway above. "Running errands." River stood without untangling her limbs and jumped light-footed down the pyramid. Her feet were bare. "How's you son?"

Aeryn remembered this too, her uncanny way of looking through everything to its bleeding heart. She was no less dangerous now than she had been then.

Nevertheless, Aeryn couldn't help the smile when she thought about D'argo. "He's well. He covered himself in mud today."

"Oh, I remember you!" Recognition lit Kaylee's face and she smiled broadly. "You helped us get Simon and Jayne back on Boros."

"Here to get something else back now," said River.

Kaylee looked confused, her smile turning brittle, and Aeryn said before she had to wonder to hard, "Is your captain here?"

Mal Reynolds was not onboard as he was finishing business in town, but Zoe was aboard.

"She and Wash have the day off," said Kaylee with a grin. "They won't be down for a good long while."

Couldn't blame them for taking time when they could when they lived shipboard, Aeryn thought with a faint smile as she nodded. "I can wait."

She liked Zoe. Aeryn had been focused during their last encounter, but she remembered Zoe's professional presence at her side as they stormed Coram's compound.

Kaylee smiled awkwardly as Aeryn made herself comfortable on the bottom row of crates. "I'll just --" she pointed over her shoulder toward the interior of the ship and went.

River came and stood in front of Aeryn, balanced on the balls of her feet.

"The Badger sent you," she said.

"Yes," said Aeryn.

"He wants something that's not his."

"He always wants something that's not his," said Aeryn. "He says Reynolds won't deliver what he paid him to."

"Mal buried him."

Aeryn didn't understand what that meant so she stayed silent. River tilted her head, then pulled a small ball from her pocket. "Jacks?"

"River?" Simon the Doctor stepped through the door to the cargo bay. He didn't notice Aeryn right away, focused on the girl as he crossed to them.

River flinched away. "No. Just talking," she said petulantly and lightly jumped up the pyramid of crates and out of his reach.

"She's been no trouble," said Aeryn. Simon looked at her finally and seemed unconvinced. He nodded politely but didn't relax, his eyes darting nervously to the gun on Aeryn's thigh, then back at his light-footed sister.

"Kaylee mentioned you'd come back," he said carefully. "Everything all right?"

"Badger sent her," River called down before Aeryn could answer, and Simon's gaze sharpened.

Aeryn carefully didn't move, not wanting to startle him, but she nodded. "It pays well and keeps him satisfied and his men out of our neighborhood." It was an arrangement she meant to maintain, even if it sometimes meant running these errands. Most of the the people Badger sent her to deal with were equally unpleasant people, upper class clientele with more money than morals, so it didn't bother her much. She worried more about the message she was sending D'argo.

"I'm sure that's comforting." Simon forced a smile, his distaste for Badger evident. Aeryn wondered if Kaylee had told him to come in here and keep her company.

But she didn't have to suffer through his awkwardness for long. The clang of boots from above descended and soon Kaylee returned with Zoe, whose dark hair was loose about her shoulders, her shirt untucked. While she didn't look too happy at being disturbed, neither was she hostile. Aeryn figured she had a few minutes before that changed.

She stood. "Zoe."

"Aeryn. Kaylee tells me you're looking for the Captain."

"I was hired by Badger to pick up a package Reynolds was hired to transport from Greenleaf."

"It was a head," said Zoe bluntly, and Aeryn didn't follow for a moment, until Zoe added, "We were supposed to give it to the man's brother."

"I see," said Aeryn, a little voice in the back of her head wondering how messy that had been to clean up. She couldn't say she was surprised, but she wished she was. She hoped the man who lost it deserved it.

Above on the crates River, sitting cross-legged again, bounced her ball.

"We didn't have anything to do with it," said Simon, taking a step closer, as if at any moment Aeryn was going to climb up and go after the girl. Aeryn relaxed a fraction, letting her hands rest lightly on her hips.

"River told me Reynolds buried it?" she asked and Zoe nodded. "Badger's not going to like that."

"Don't reckon he is," said Zoe carefully. "But we don't deal in corpses. And I don't figure you for the type either."

"No. I'm not," said Aeryn. When she and John had found themselves in this corner of the universe unable to return, they'd promised each other they would leave the worst of themselves behind. It wasn't always easy in this hard territory, but they did what the could because they had D'argo now. But keeping that promise meant sometimes solving problems that kept bigger problems at bay.

"Do you know the brother's name? I'll take care of it," Aeryn said.

"By cutting his head off too?" asked Simon sharply.

"By making sure he does what Badger wants so Badger has no reason to complain, or know, that Reynolds didn't follow through," said Aeryn. "That would be bad for you and bad for me."

"You'd do that?" Kaylee still stood half behind Zoe, wringing her hands.

"If it will get the job done," said Aeryn. She looked between Zoe and Simon. "You saved my son. I'll always honor that."

"We 'preciate it," said Zoe, and then she briefed Aeryn on the situation as they understood it. It was fairly straight forward -- Aeryn wondered whose bad idea it was to mail body parts across systems -- and she was confident that she could handle the merchant to Badger's satisfaction by the end of the day.

Kaylee waved as she turned to go, and Zoe stood loose and easy. "Say hello to your family for us," she called.

Aeryn found herself smiling again and knew that John would hate having missed them. "I will. You should stop by for dinner next time you pass through. John likes to bar-b-cue."

"I'll see that we do," said Zoe smiling in return. She raised her hand in farewell, and Aeryn descended back into the dusty fairway.


End file.
